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TELEMACHUS 



AND 



OTHER 
POEMS 



l3 



BY 



HENRY F. THURSTON 



I "^M^- iJPRAnY OF 

I"- "f> COPIbtS RtCK(VED 

•-^"^^ 9 1S02 

OOPVBIOHT FNTRV 

C».ASS Ct^XXo. No. 

Z/. £, ^ (b ^ 



.H?7T4- 



Copyright 1902 
By Henry Franklin Thurston. 

WINNETKA, ILLINOIS. 



CONTENTS. 

Page 

Telemachus i 

At the Amazon-Equator 14 

The Changing Year 16 

StarHght at Sea 18 

The Sovereignty of God 20 

A Lodge in the Wilderness 23 

Kemeny the Knight 28 

The Storm-Sun 33 

The Martyrs of Lexington 36 

The Uprising 40 

The Lord of the Seas 43 

The Cup-Coral 46 

The Man with the Marvelous Light 48 

The Armies of the Asters 50 

The Bard 52 

Rain on the Sea 55 

Beni Khaibei 57 

A Winter Forest 60 

The Hill-Bound Stream 62 

The Old Men in Books 64 

Battle of Manila Ba> 66 



CONTENTS. 

Page 

Cervera 69 

Sea Caves 72 

The Patriarch Sequoia 74 

Belshazzar's Feast Tj 

The Mighty Deep 81 

The Eskimo's Inferno 83 

The Eskimo's Elysium 85 

The Plow of the Lord 87 

The Farm and the State 89 

The First Christmas 91 

The Earth-Star 93 

A Sunset Scene 95 

The Universal Tragedy 98 

The Lighthouse loi 

Art is Long 102 

A Dream of Science 104 

The Divine in Man 108 

The Golden Rivers 1 10 

The Sea-Beach 112 

Lovely Camden 115 

En Voyage ii7 

Eternal Change 118 

The Stars 120 

Mental Picture Galleries 121 



Telemachus. 

(Te-lem'-a-kus.) 
Telemachus was the monk who, by the 
sacrifice of his life, brought to an end the 
gladiatorial games in the arena at Rome. 
This tragedy occurred in the year 404 of 
the Christian era. Previous to that time these 
bloody exhibitions were a feature of Roman 
festivity, as the bull-fights are to-day in 
Spain a feature of Spanish festivity. In the 
days of Telemachus Rome had been nom- 
inally Christian for nearly a hundred years, 
but the old barbarity still clung to Roman 
life. Public sentiment, however, had been 
gradually growing in the direction of the 
abolition of the gladiatorial contests. Some- 
thing was needed to bring this sentiment to 
the surface. This the death of Telemachus 
did. Public opinion became at once hostile 
to a continuance of the bloody pastime, and 
it was abandoned forever. 

1 



Telemachus. 

Amid the solitudes of Africa, 

Where pathless wastes and gloomy forests 

are, 
There dwelt a hermit in the days of old, 
Whose heart was not on earthly goods nor 

gold. 

Why fled he thither, seeking undismayed 
A lonely dwelling in the forest shade? 
I know not ; but he may have been of those 
Whose lives are clouded by unnumbered 

woes, 
Whom Heaven ever seems to hedge around 
With mountains lofty, and with gulfs pro- 
found. 
Whose paths with snares and rolling stones 
are filled; 

2 



TELEMACHUS. 3 

Whose youthful days the bow of promise 

thrilled, 
But winds of March and April's rushing 

showers, 
Have promised ever, but ne'er brought, May 

flowers ; 
Of such as coming to a streamlet's side, 
Behold it changed into a river wide, 
And, where before them others vaulted o'er, 
These struggle painfully from shore to 

shore : 
For such ones oft, despairing at their plight. 
Throw down their weapons and give o'er 

the fight. 
Or else perchance, he may have lived at 

ease 
In some one of the great metropoles, 
And, with a heart susceptible to pain, 
Not for himself so much as other men, 
Mourned at beholding the great world o'er- 

flow 
With ceaseless suflfering and endless woe: 
Until the cries forever seemed to ring 
From hut of peasant, and from hall of king, 



4 TELEMACHUS. 

And haunt his dreams by night, his 

thoughts by day, 
Until he hasted from their voice away. 
But good Telemachus, I doubt not, was 
Urged to seckision by a nobler cause ; 
That in his heart an unsubdued desire 
Was burning always like enduring fire, 
That ever gave him deepest discontent, 
When contemplating his environment ; 
That oft he felt his thoughts from Heaven 

drawn 
To things he rather would not think upon; 
And often wished that he had angels' 

wings, 
To rise to regions of diviner things. 
Where he might roam, forever fetterless, 
Through all the blessed fields of righteous- 
ness; 
Until he wandered from his home, and 

found 
A haven, far from human thought and 
sound. 

And there he wept and prayed and sought 
to draw 



TELEMACHUS. 5 

Near to the Giver of both love and law. 
And, meditating on "The Word," he knew 
That ever nearer to his Lord he drew, 
But felt his heart more sad and deeper 

pained, 
The nearer he unto his Lord attained ; 
For, as he searched his heart's vast garden 

o'er, 
He found out sins he never knew before. 
So, when illumined by the Light divine 
Whose rays effulgent through our being 

shine, 
We find faults many, and, if seeking more, 
Where one was looked for, we have found a 

score ; 
But when the soul is dark, and gloom and 

shade 
Each hall and chamber of the heart pervade, 
Then all unseen are frightful forms and 

stains, 
Where light is wanting and blank darkness 

reigns. 



6 TELEMACHUS. 

So this meek servant, growing every day 
More like his Lord in every thought and 

way, 
Roamed through the wilds and saw in 

everything 
A sign or image of creation's King : 
At noontime resting 'neath a rock, he cried, 
"Oh, thou art so much like the 'Crucified,' 
Thou shelt'rest him who to thy bosom flees 
From scorching heat and from unwelcome 

breeze" ; 
And when he saw a gushing torrent flow 
From moss-grown ledges to the vale below, 
He thought it ever like the Son of God, 
Who sends His Spirit like a stream abroad ; 
Each tree became the ''Tree of Life" to him. 
And every follower of Christ, a limb, — 
Until he saw in earth, and moon, and sun. 
The glowing symbols of the Holy One. 

From lands afar came sailor, bard, and 

sage. 
For prayer or counsel to his hermitage. 
And some there were from that historic 

shore, 



TELEMACHUS. 7 

Men called Lavinia in days of yore, 
Where, from long wandering, the weary 

feet 
Of Trojans rested in a safe retreat. 
Where hills are crowned with turret, shaft, 

and dome. 
Within the shadow of the walls of Rome. 

Strange tales they told of the inhuman play, 
The crowning triumph of each gala-day. 
Where friends or brothers were brought 

hand to hand 
In mortal combat on the bloody sand ; 
While round the vast arena in a ring 
Sat maid, and merchant, warrior, priest, and 

king, 
And laughed with glee to see the sword 

flash through 
The tender flesh and cleave the heart in two, 
Or shouted loud in wild applause to see 
A dying mortal writhe in agony. 
How throbbed the hermit's faithful heart to 

know 
That poor humanity had sunk so low, 



8 TELEMACHUS. 

That all its highest pleasure should be 

found 
In mortal sorrow, and in grief profound. 

By night, in dreams, a fearful sight he saw 
Of beasts and men that waged eternal war 
And tore each other, while great crowds 

looked on, 
Fiercely acclaiming at the murder done. 
By day he fancied that the shadows long 
Swayed with the measure of a mournful 

song, 
A dirge lamenting o'er the fallen state 
Of god-like beings, made divinely great. 

So, long he fasted, long he wept and prayed, 
While o'er his soul forever hung the shade. 
But all in vain, the more he wept the more 
The frightful vision hung his spirit o'er. 

"It is my duty," so he said, "to go 

To distant Rome, and, whether threat'ning 

foe 
Or seeming friend oppose me, fearlessly 
Upon the sands of slaughter stand and cry 



TELEMACHUS. 9 

Against the murder, and in holy name 
Rebuke such revelry of sin and shame. 
What though I fall ! the servant is not more 
To be regarded than his Lord before : 
He died for men ; and if He will it so, 
I'll drain with joy the cup of mortal woe; 
If all must die, 'twere better furthering 
The fair dominion of our Holy King/' 

From Libyan forests far he took his way, 
In weary journey ings by night and day, 
Bowed down by heat, or on the mighty seas 
Refreshed and gladdened by the cooling 
breeze. 

Then westward sailed he, till from out the 

sea 
Before him rose the land of Italy, 
With distant hills the blue haze hanging 

o'er. 
And spreading fields, and undulating shore, 
And whitened cities that each bay beside 
Saw their own faces in the peaceful tide. 
Thence did he journey to that city famed, 
"Eternal City'' by the nations named, 



10 TELEMACHUS. 

That ruled in undisputed might, and saw 
A trembHng world obey her iron law. 

Again in Rome has come a holiday ; 
And, like a princess in her robings gay, 
The "Ancient City" sits in pomp and pride, 
Through all her borders decked and glori- 
fied, 
And wreathed with laurel, to commemorate 
The great achievements of the Roman 
State. 

Through all the streets the mighty multi- 
tude 
Flows hither, thither, like a curbless flood, 
Or waits impatient till the sun shall throw 
A certain ray upon the dial low, 
That shall to all the opening proclaim 
Of the great Circus, for the bloody game. 

Now speed the hours upon rapid wings. 
And each to Rome a greater tumult brings ; 
As slaves and princes throng the spacious 

place, 
That she has builded for her pleasure base. 



TELEMACHUS. ii 

High sits the monarch, and around him 

stand 
The lesser rulers of the boastful land, 
And mail-clad warriors looking grim and 

gray, 
War-worn and scarred from some terrific 

fray. 
And half the beauty of the land is there : 
The Alban maid, the Latin matron fair, 
The rustic virgin, who might better hold 
The pendant distaff, or, by field and fold, 
Amid fair nature's verdant loveliness. 
Lead forth her sheep, a gentle shepherdess. 
Still tens of thousands swarm through arch 

and hall, 
By pondrous pillar, and by massive wall, 
And throng the ancient rock-hewn seats, or 

stand 
In the great circle round the central sand. 

As after storms the ocean waves subside, 
So dies the tumult upon every side, 
And quiet reigns; while all the host below 
Watch the arena for the coming show. 



12 TELEMACHUS. 

Now, from their cells the gladiators come, 
And face the throne, and pause a moment 

dumb, 
Then both together lift their weapons high, 
And, "morituri te salutant," cry. 

But ere the warriors in mad onset close. 
What human being dares to interpose ? 
'Tis he, Telemachus, who through the 

throng, 
With daring purpose unrestrained and 

strong. 
Has forced his way and throws himself be- 
tween 
The brutal foemen and their weapons keen. 
And, in the name of his beloved Lord, 
Forbids the combat, and restrains each 
sword. 

A moment pause the gladiators dazed ; 
A moment, speechless sits the king, amazed ; 
A moment superstitious fears arise, 
And awful silence on the people lies. 
Then follows the indignant overflow 
Of pent-up anger, and the crowds below 



TELEMACHUS. 13 

The royal gallery in fury cry, 
That he who stops the Roman game must 
die. 

The hermit fell ; the thund'ring shout of 

Rome, 
Resounding, rose through the aerial dome. 
But rest, thou hermit, for thy death has 

more 
Accomplished for thee than all things 

before, 
And in thy dying thou hast overthrown 
The game barbaric, and thy blood is sown 
Like salt upon the Coliseum sand, 
Where never more shall gladiator stand. 

The years have passed, but never from that 

day. 
Did Rome's great theatre behold such play. 
Where now the sunlight and the moonlight 

fall 
On sand deserted, and on broken wall. 



At the Amazon-Equator. 

Here, amid these forests tangled, 

Where Hana twines 
Till the mighty trees are strangled 

By the coiling vines. 
Shines a day that changes never 

As the ages run. 
But outspreads one scene forever 

Underneath the sun. 

Here, since first the earth was vernal, 

Day has followed day 
In a summer-time eternal, 

In an endless May, 
In a round of sun and showers, — 

Here the fertile mold 
Feeds its ofif-springs with the flowers 

Of the cycles old. 

14 



AT THE AMAZON-EQUATOR. 15 

Seasons come not : growth unceasing 

Minds not months and years ; 
Never in the trees' increasing 

Node or ring appears ; 
Nature's pulses throb and quiver 

With the ceaseless strain, 
Till the forests throng the river 

And the humid plain. 

Every span of soil is fought-for, 

Where a shoot may spring ; 
Every narrow sunbeam sought-for, 

Where a bird may wing ; 
Till the sunlight glimmers dimly, 

And the shadows lie 
Where the stifled fern-brakes slimly 

Struggle toward the sky. 

Here are wonders than no greater 

Falls the daylight on, 
Where, along the world's equator 

Flows the Amazon, 
Where a day that changes never 

As the ages run 
Has outspread one scene forever 

Underneath the sun. 



The Changing Year. 

Sing who will of changeless seasons 

Under tropic skies. 
Better is the moody northland 

Where each season dies, 
And the year outpours her bounties 

Bright with many a prize. 

Green the mantle of the springtime, 
Bright her scarf of flowers ; 

Sweet the scented breath of summer, 
Dear her restful hours ; 

Rich as Ceres sits the autumn 
Mid her flaming bowers. 

In a holy whiteness reigning, 
Winter spreads his snow, 

16 



THE CHANGING YEAR. i^ 

With his germless breath and icy 

Sets the blood a-flow, 
Till we thrill with joy that only 

Perfect health can know. 

Never comes a season joyless, 

Blessings shadow pain ; 
He who will be may be happy 

Under sun or rain ; 
For the summer heart ensummers 

Winter's frozen plain. 



starlight at Sea. 

Not the breath of a breeze 

In that tropical night 
Fanned the sails of our ship, 

Not a ray of moonlight 
Dimmed the light of the stars, 

As they shone, where asleep 
Lay the waves, on the breast 

Of the far-spreading deep. 

There was silence. Our ship 

On the watery plain 
Seemed to hang 'tween the stars 

Of the sky and the main : — 
With her canvas outspread. 

She was hovering there 
Like a black and white bird 

Equipoised in the air. 

18 



STARLIGHT AT SEA. 19 

Scarce a word did we speak, 

As we stood by the rail, 
But we drank in the Hght 

That was glimmering pale 
From the dome of the sky 

And the dome of the deep, 
While the wind and the waves 

And our wills were asleep. 

Through the void of the air 

And of space, to where runs 
A new process of life 

In those far away suns, 
Flew the birds of our thoughts ; 

And the vessel and we 
Floated light on the breast 

Of the star-lighted sea. 



The Sovereignty of God. 

We move in Him, the universe 
Doth but one Master know ; 

All things subserving one vast plan 
Do as a river flow. 

He wills it light : the stars shine forth, 
The bright moon doth arise, 

The sun doth send his ardent beams 
Along the dazzled skies. 

He wills it dark : the stars go out, 

The moon in sable shroud 
Doth hide herself ; the earth and sky 

Are wrapped in mist and cloud ; 

But ever He appointeth all, 
If good or evil be, 

20 



THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 21 

No power exists or can exist, 
Above his sovereignty. 

The stars in countless millions roll 
Through the illumined space; 

In their eternal orbits each 
Keeps its appointed place ; 

Each planet sweeps in graceful curves 

Around its central sun, 
And each its predetermined course 

The works of nature run. 

The ages come, the ages go, 

The nations fall and rise, 
The wicked sin, the just do good. 

And all before His eyes ; 

But ever he appointeth all, 

If good or evil be ; 
No power exists or can exist 

Above his sovereignty. 

Think not that man can fight with God, 
Or devils thwart his will. 



22 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 

For these are but the instruments 
His purpose to fulfill; 

For night must be — this evil night 
That fills the world with sin — 

That out of darkness light may shine 
And God himself be seen. 

So shall his attributes be known, 
And we shall see his face, 

When all of evil flees away 
Before His strength and grace ; 

For ever he appointeth all, 

If good or evil be ; 
No power exists or can exist 

Above his sovereignty. 



A Lodge in the Wilderness. 

'Mid glooms and glades, 

Where sylvan shades 
Bedim the wild grapes' flowing braids 

And spreading hands, 

A dwelling stands 
With windows wide toward wonderlands. 

In solitude 

The mountains brood, 
A silent, watching multitude, 

With sleepless eyes, 

Whose helmets rise 
Snow-plumed against the azure skies. 

As tears that fall 
From giants tall, 
Adown the mountain's sombre wall 

23 



24 A LODGE iN THE WILDERNESS. 

From melting snows 
A bright stream flows, 
As silver in the sunlight glows. 

On distant height 

A thread of light 
At first, then grows upon the sight 

In broader gleams 

Through ragged seams 
A torrent of commingling streams. 

Rude channels past. 

It flows at last 
In valleys far from mountain blast, 

And broad expands 

O'er shining sands, 
The mirror of the flower-lands. 

A wilderness 

Of roses press 
Upon the brink in shining dress ; 

In robes of white, 

A fairer sight, 
The water-lilies cluster bright. 



A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS. 25 

So glides awhile 

In nature's smile 
This stream by mimic cape and isle, 

Then headlong- springs 

On airy wings 
Away from earth-enticing things. 

Out-leaping o'er 

The ocean's shore, 
It swells the billows' ceaseless roar, 

Where surge and wave 

In fury rave 
On stubborn rock and sounding cave. 

The great, great sea 

Unchained and free, 
Upheaving in immensity, 

With mellow sighs, 

Far-spreading lies 
Till distance weds it with the skies. 

When cares oppress, 
When fears distress, 
Then flee I to this wilderness, 



26 A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS. 

In thought, and dwell 
Where all is well 
Beneath the forest's peaceful spell. 

Here rest, sweet rest, 

Pervades the breast, 
Where fears no more our dreams infest, 

The world forgot, 

Here cares are naught, 
And freely soars the restless thought. 

From feathered throats 

Soft cadence floats 
In dreamy, mellow, thrilling notes. 

Of birds that swing 

On leafy ring 
O'er limpid pool or crystal spring. 

By day how fly 

The moments by. 
By night how sweet the lullaby 

That ocean sings 

When living things 
Have slaked their thirst in Lethe's springs. 



A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS. 2^ 

Here let the years 

Undimmed by tears 
Bring swift oblivion to our fears, 

Bring joy and ease, 

And birds and trees, 
And gentle winds and summer seas. 



Kemeny the Knight. 

(Ke-me'-ny.) 
During the reign of Sigismund, in Hun- 
gary, during the fifteenth century, the Turks 
invaded that country in great force, and, in- 
deed, threatened to overrun all Europe. The 
most renowned general of Hungary, Hun- 
yadi, took the field to hold the Turks in 
check. On his ability hung the fate of Eu- 
rope. He defeated the Turks in several 
battles. His greatest and most decisive vic- 
tory was on the field of St. Imre. Previous 
to that battle the Turkish commander had 
selected chosen knights to seek out Hunyadi 
in battle and kill him. A spy carried the 
news of this plot to the allied Austrians and 
Huns. Hunyadi on all battle fields where 
he had commanded had been easily distin- 
guished by his white plume and brilliant 
armor. Kemeny, a Hungarian knight, of- 
fered to wear the armor of his chief in the 
coming battle, and thus save Hunyadi to his 
country. This brave deed cost the knight 
his life, but Hunyadi in turn routed the 

Turks. 

28 



Kemeny the Knight. 

It was night in the camp 
Of the Turk, and the damp 

Of the fogs that were blown from the 
river, 
With invisible stroke 
Through each cuirass and cloak, 

Made the warriors of Ottoman shiver. 

In the depth of the gloom 
In black armor and plume, 

Emblazoned with crescent and comet, 
Were the noblest in name 
Of the "faithful" who came 

To swear by the beard of Mahomet. 

And the oath was as dread 
As the curse of the dead, 

To break it were infinite sorrow ; 

29 



30 KEMENY THE KNIGHT. 

For they banded to slay 
In the battle afifray 

Hunyadi their foe, on the morrow. 

Through the darkest of glades 
Ever courting the shades 

Of the trees, for the moon had arisen, 
Something glided alone. 
Like a mist that is blown, 

Or a felon that flees from his prison. 

To the camp far away. 
Where the Magyar array 

With their shields for their pillows were 

lying, 

Came the spy, and he told 

What was done in the fold 

Of the Turks and the plot they were ply- 
ing. 

Then rose up in his might 
Brave Kemeny the knight, 

And he spoke in the pride of his power : 
"I will wear the white plume. 
And the armor assume, 

Of our chief in that dangerous hour." 



KEMENY THE KNIGHT. 31 

It was mom, and the field 
Of Saint Imre revealed 

The Huns and the Austrians dreaded, 
In their closing array, 
As they moved to the fray 

With their steeds to the enemy headed. 

But the fairest of all 

*Neath his plume white and tall, 

Kemeny, with knightly attendant. 
Like a white morning star, 
That is seen from afar, 

Shone forth in his armor resplendent. 

Then a terrible roar, 
Like the sound of a shore 

Where the tempest-mad billows are beat- 
ing, 
Was borne up from the plain, 
Where the spearmen again 

In onset terrific were meeting. 

But alas for the knight 
In the front of the fight 
Who fought in his harness imposing, 



32 KEMENY THE KNIGHT. 

When the oath-banded foe 
Did their champions throw 

Around him in death-meshes closing; 

For he fell, and the cry 
Of the Turks to the sky 

In clamor triumphant resounded, 
Till they heard, through the rack 
Of the battle, flung back 

The name of Hunyadi, astounded. 

And at eve, when the sun 
Had his vespers begun, 

Ere the night, like a ghost sable-sheeted 
Should disturb his repose, 
All the Mussulman foes 

Of the glorious cross were defeated. 

Then they builded a fane 
On the battle-scarred plain, 

Where the knightly Kemeny had per- 
ished ; 
And nobly and long 
In the annals of song. 

Was the fame of the champion cherished. 



The Storm-Sun. 

Darkness, tempest, rayless night, 

On a maddened ocean 
Roared and reveled. In their might 

Was the seas' commotion. 
Thrice the dayHght dawned and dimmed 

In its misty pall, 
Thrice the dreadful night fast bound us 

In its ebon wall ; 
Salty seas 
Toward our lees 

Foamed and thundered past ; 
Sodden sails 
Rent by gales 

Fluttered from the mast ; 

33 



34 THE STORM-SUN. 

Whitened, 
Frightened 
By the tumult, 

Looked each human face, 
When, unspoken, 
Grand, unbroken, 

From his cloudy place, 
Burst the storm-sun. 
Blazed the storm-sun. 

All our world a mighty cave 

In cloud mountains hollowed ! 
Flying mist and driving wave 

Each the other followed. 
Beady waters 

Glittered whitely 

Where the whirling spray 
Crossed the long lance of the sunlight 

On the watery way ; 
Rifted, black, 
Drove the rack 

Of the firmament ; 
In the shrouds 
Of the clouds 

Light and shade were blent ; 



THE STORM-SUN. 35 

Yellow, 
Mellow, 

Misty fingers 
Drifted into sight, 
When in streaming 
Splendor beaming 

Through our cavern's night, 
Shone the storm-sun, 
Blazed the storm-sun. 



The Martyrs of Lexington. 

There was gallop of horses and hurry of 
men, 
There was answer of gun to the far min- 
ute gun, 
There was pealing of bells till the country 
and town 
Were awake and in arms, ere the rise of 
the sun ; 

For the red-coated troops of the king were 
afoot 
In their martial array on the Lexington 
road. 
And the host of the forty-score regulars 
looked 
Like a blossom-strewn river that gleamed 
as it flowed. 

36 



THE MARTYRS OF LEXINGTON. 37 

When the scarlet-flecked stream into Lex- 
ington ran, 
In the mists of the morning the sun ghm- 
mered red ; 
On the soft April sod lay the dew of the 
eve; 
On the trees waked the buds, by the sap- 
fountains fed. 

On the green, in thin lines, with their 
muskets at dress. 
Stood the three-scorc-and-ten in whose 
hearts was the fate 
Of the half of a world, who would lay on 
that day, 
In their blood, the first stone of a glori- 
ous state. 

Not as warriors that flame with the frenzy 
of fight 
And with confident bosoms encounter the 
foe, 
They were there, but as martyrs that stand 
for a faith 
And with breasts all unshielded inviting 
the blow ; 



38 THE MARTYRS OF LEXINGTON. 

For they said, *'Let us fall by the guns of 
the king, 
Let the tempest burst here, if it ever 
must be, 
Let our blood tell abroad through the wak- 
ening land 
What a tyrant has done on the soil of the 
free." 

To the left and the right, in a terrible calm, 
Swung the battle-drawn line of the stern 
grenadiers. 
And, as grimly and slowly they loaded with 
ball, 
Fell a hush, ere began that fierce drama 
of years. 

To the front rode Pitcairn, to the patriot 
band 
Rang the words of his warning, "Disarm 
and disperse," 
But they stood like the rocks of their ter- 
rorless hills, 
Never melted by blessing nor frightened 
by curse. 



THE MARTYRS OF LEXINGTON. 39 

Then the Hne of the regulars burst into 
flame, 
And the war-crying drums beat the step 
of the charge ; 
And the blood of the martyrs of Lexington 
lay 
Like red rain on the green of the battle- 
field's marge. 

But the roar of that volley still sounds in 
the world, 
And the blood of those martyrs has 
dripped on the thrones 
Till their pillars are dust in the lands of the 
West, 
And their glories are paled in the orient 
zones. 



The Uprising. 

Abroad, with the breath of the morning, 
Through the land went a clamor and cry, 

That leaped from the shore to the forest. 
That the hills echoed back to the sky, 

A call for a people's uprising, 

And a shout where the foemen were nigh. 

With blood had the people been sprinkled. 
And the cheer of the foe had been loud. 

When ranked on the Lexington common 
They had blazoned a victory proud ; 

For dead lay a handful before them. 

And they deemed that the land had been 
cowed. 

Then fast flew the steeds of the freemen 
Past the towns and the hamlets and 
farms, 

40 



THE UPRISING. 41 

And fast, at the cry of their riders, 
Did the patriots gather in arms ; 

And ever new messengers mounted 
When they heard from afar the alarms. 

By sunHght, by starhght, they galloped, 
They aroused the coast cities of Maine, 

Their words kindled flame by the Hudson, 
They were heard on the Maryland plain ; 

Till men by the southern palmetto 

Rose in arms when they heard of the 
slain. 



The plow was left fast in the furrow, 

For the plowman went forth in his might ; 

The herd wandered free in the highway. 
For the herdsman had girded for fight ; 

The woodsman came out of the forest, 
And the hunter came down from the 
height. 

The sons, by the hands of their mothers 

Were adorned to encounter the foe, 
No cowardly matron among them 



42 THE UPRISING. 

As they pressed back the tears and said 
"Go," 
Their faces were brave to their warriors, 
But their hearts held an infinite woe. 

Like leaves that blow out of the forest 
With the frost-laden breath of the Fall, 

There came from the northland and south- 
land 
In their valor the great and the small. 

All girded for battle triumphant 
Or to perish at Liberty's call. 

Oh ! splendid, heroic uprising 

When our liberties hung in the scale! 

It moulded the will of our nation, 
For it taught us to die or prevail ; 

And long as its ardent flame warms us 
Will the stars of our flag never fail. 



The Lord of the Seas. 

Alone on the breast of the main, 

We had sailed with the sun and the 
breeze, 
Till our hearts felt the greatness of God, 

And we worshipped the Lord of the seas. 

Away to the right and the left 

Were the waves, to the edge of the world, 
And behind, in the rack of our path 

Was a tempest of water inwhirled. 

Before us a prairie qf sea 

Was abloom with its flowers of foam. 
Till it mingled its uttermost surge 

With the liJue of the down-reaching 
dome. 

43 



44 THE LORD OF THE SEAS. 

Like a king, 'mid his armies of cloud, 
In the realm of the sky was the sun. 

Purple-robed as he sank in the west, 
When his journay diurnal was done. 

And there, twixt the night and the day, 
We rejoiced at the glories, and these 

Filled our hearts with delight and with 
praise, 
And we worshipped the Lord of the seas. 

At first, in the rim of the sky 

That was dark o'er the waves of the east, 
Like the dust of the diamonds, the stars 

Hardly glimmered, then shone, then in- 
creased. 

Till rank after rank was aflame, 
Till the west as the east was aglow ; 

And we looked from the splendors above 
To the orbs in the waters below. 

Then slow rose the disk of the Moon 

From the waves of the east, and the night 

Fled away at the sight of her face, 
And the ocean was flooded with light. 



THE LORD OF THE SEAS. 45 

And soft were our hearts as we looked ; 

And we talked of the Maker of these; 
Ai^nd we sang him a song in the night ; 

And we worshipped the Lord of the seas. 



The Cup-Coral. 

A careless hand the soil had turned, 
A mind untaught the trophy spurned, 

That bound to-day 

With far-away, 
Time-veiled, mysterious yesterday, — 

A yesterday 
Beyond a night 

Whose confines lay 
In infinite 
Unnumbered multitudes of years, 
The graves of sorrows and of tears. 

Within this coral once there grew 
A polyp (when the world was new) 
That waved its hands 
'Mid seas and sands 
That girded the Devonian lands, 
And drew its prey 
From briny field 
Of green and gray. 

Where rocked and reeled 

46 



THE CUP-CORAL. 47 

Aquatic forests branching wide 
Adown the prehistoric tide. 

But over all the surging tide 
Of time upheaved, in cycles wide 

The years were poured 

Like whelming flood, 
And lands arose where waters stood. 

Each coral steep, 
Each trophy old, 

Was buried deep 
In sand and mould, 
Save where some river rushed in force 
Along its gravel-bordered course. 

Now Cometh man, of recent birth. 
To roam the sea and rule the earth, 

To boldly climb 

The heights sublime 
Overlooking all-departed time, 

And read the book 
That opens wide 

By mount, "and brook. 
And ocean-side, 
And learn to sing a song in praise 
Of the Creator's wondrous ways. 



The Man with the Marvelous Light. 

In the days when the glory of Judah 

From the land of the promise had fled. 
When the hopes of the saints had departed, 

And the joy of the prophets was dead, 
When the hosts of the day, which were 
many, 

Had become but the few of the night, 
There appeared mid the tombs and the 
shadows, 

A Man with a marvelous light. 

Like a torch in the darkness uplifted, 
It illumined the land and the sea ; 

It awakened the shores of the Jordan, 
And it blazed over wide Galilee ; 

Till the kings and the captains were trou- 
bled, 

48 



MAN WITH THE MARVELOUS LIGHT 49 

Till the nations were pale with afright, 
Till the priests of the idols were scattered 
By the Man with the marvelous light. 

There's a rift in the clouds of the nations, 

There's a glory that shines from the East. 
'T is a light that forever increases, 

As the truth has forever increased ; 
And we know that the day is approaching, 

And that few are the hours of night, 
That the sun of the spirit is rising — 

The Man with the marvelous light. 



The Armies of the Asters. 

The silent armies of the asters came 

And pitched by hill and plain : 
They dressed their lines, and set their ban- 
ners free 
From main to main, 
From forest glade to far-stretched mountain 
chain. 

They stole upon us in the summer night ; 

They passed our sentries by ; 
Their dew-tipped spears in myriad millions 
faced 

The morning sky, 

And star-plumed guards held all the prairie 

nigh. 

so 



THE ARMIES OF THE ASTERS. 51 

Though white and blue and purple, all their 
crests 
The jealous west- wind tossed ; 
The August drouth assailed by hill and 
stream, 
But none were lost ; 
Then came the Autumn's rains and gales 
and frost. 

Still stand their hosts entrenched in every 
wood. 

In every valley wild, 
To hold the land where the Autumnal sun 

Has looked and smiled, 
Redeeming all the waste by beauty mild. 



The Bard. 

He touched the lyre, 
A hidden fire 

Upsprang ; 
With heaving breast 
And strange unrest 

He sang. 

Beyond the ken 
Of mortal men 

He saw 
And roused again 
Each peaceful swain 

To war. 

In fitful burst 

The notes at first 

Arose, 

Then swept along 

As river strong 

Onflows. 
52 



THE BARD. 53 

Of triumph sure 
And peace secure 

He told, 
And fired the throng 
With spirit strong 

And bold. 

The bugles blew, 
The clansmen flew 

To arms ; 
When from the night 
A fearful sight 

Alarms : 

With serried ranks 
A dread phalanx 

Appears, 
With Saxon hordes, 
And Saxon swords 

And spears. 

With battle cries 
They rend the skies 

And close ; 
The claymores clang, 
And loudly twang 

The bows ; 



54 THE BARD. 

The Scottish hopes 
Are rent like ropes 

Of sand, 
And gloom and blight 
Enshroud like night 

The land. 

Alas for Scot; 
The bard saw not 

The end ! 
For sounding lyre, 
Let blazing pyre 

Ascend. 

The field is red, 
The hosts are fled, 

The rill 
Alone doth string 
Its harp to sing 

With will ; 

The stars behold 
The faces cold 

And scarred, 
And, lying red 
Among the dead, 

The bard. 



Rain on the Sea. 

Swiftly falling, 
Loudly calling, 

Like the voice of teraphim 
Calling in imaginations 
To the ears of heathen nations 

In the distant past and dim, 
Came the rain, the driving rain, 
On the bosom of the main. 

Crystal hammers ! 
Liquid clamors ! 

Wat'ry caverns open wide ! 
As, by ancient bard asserted, 
Once a king with spear inverted 

Smote a mountain's hollow side, 
And did free to roam the sea 
All his proud captivity. 

55 



56 RAIN ON THE SEA. 

From each briny 
Cavern tiny 

Springs a bright aquatic elf,* . 
Dancing 'round as in the fancies 
Of our dreams Gambrinus dances, 

Or as Bacchus would himself, 
And they greet us with the beat 
Of a million dancing feet. 

And in motion 
On the ocean 

From the million dancing kings 
Mimic waves are outward flowing, 
On their devious journeys going, 

With the intertwining rings. 
While the deep, the gloomy deep, 
Gathers all — its prey to keep. 

Thus the falling 
Rain was calling 

As I heard it long ago, 
When in monotone unceasing. 
Strangely sad, but sadly pleasing, 

When the summer wind did blow, 
Came the rain, the driving rain, 
On the bosom of the main. 



Beni Khaiber.* 

We've kept thy words, Joanadab, we've 

neither tree nor vine, 
We own no houses, have no lands, we never 
taste of wine, 
We roam afar wherever green 

The pastures roll before. 
For we are strangers in the land 
And will be evermore. 

We've seen a hundred kingdoms fall, great 

races pass away, 
And stone-built cities, moated, walled, have 

crumbled into clay, 



*The Beni Khaiber are a tribe of Arabian 
Nomads who claim to be the ancient 
Rechabites. 

57 



58 BENI KHAIBER. 

And where were granite palaces 

And gardens of the vine, 
Are now the richest woodlands where 

Our flocks at noonday dine. 

Our tents have stood the storms of four- 

and-twenty hundred years, 
And plague and war have dealt with us 
severest through our fears. 
When famine wasted other lands 
Our fields have still been green, 
And tempest-riven skies have been 
To us but skies serene. 

It happened long, ah, long ago, we count by 

centuries, 
That to a city far we fled, urged by necessi- 
ties. 
To shun the host of Syria 
And the Chadean king, 
We hasted westward like a flock 
Of birds upon the wing. 

And in that city far away, a man of mien 
divine 



BENI KHAIBER. 59 

Enticed us to a temple fair, and tempted us 
with wine, 
And from the law our father made 

His sons did not depart, 
But kept the precepts, for his words 
Are written on the heart. 

Then spoke the man of God to us, with 

holy ardor fired, 
And in our ears a message poured, prophetic 
and inspired, 
"Because the Rechabites have kept 

Joanadab's command, 
Their children ever more shall dwell 
Before me in the land." 

Fast roll the years that woven thick with 

changes come and go. 
And all is altered save the word of God to 
man below. 
For, like a rock that from the sea 

Rears its triumphant form, 
The promise of the Lord remains 
Unmoved by time or storm. 



A Winter Forest. 

The snow lies deep in the woodland, 
'Tis the holiday garb of the year— 
'Tis the white ermine robe of the year — 

And it holds in its silence and beauty 
The leaves that are fallen and sere. 

There's a burden of snow on the branches, 
And the fir trees are shaggy with plumes — 
They are white with immaculate plumes — 

And the sun glitters whitely and dazzles 
In the home of the summer-day glooms. 

On the side of each tree is a mirror, 
'Tis of water transmuted to glass, — 
Where the rain has been changed into 
glass — 

And it shines for the winter-wood creatures, 
On the crystalline highways that pass. 

60 



A WINTER FOREST. 6i 

There are trees that are leafless and bearded 
With the pendants thatcHng to the moss — 
With the ice-covered threads of the 
moss — 

And they droop, in a world that is Gothic, 
With the low-hanging arch and the cross. 

It is coldness and whiteness and glitter 
And a beauty that freezes the heart — 
It chills the red warmth of the heart — 

But it pleases the winter-wood creatures 
That dwell in the forest apart. 



The Hill-Bound Stream, 

It lies alone by the hills, 
And the fountains feed it ; 

It flows afar, afar, 

Through the vales that need it. 

It breaks the gloom of the trees 
That it glimmers under, 

And it rends the mighty host 
Of the wood asunder. 

It calls to the breath of May, 

But the zephyr flees it, 
And seldom the sun or the moon 

Or the dim star sees it. 

For the pendant banners of green 

In the still air shade it ; 
And only the bees and the birds 

And their like invade it. 

62 



THE HILL-BOUND STREAM. 63 

But softly it comes at last 

To the bloom-bright meadows, 

And the sun looks into the depths 
That were dense with shadows. 

Its face breaks into a smile, 

For the breeze has kissed it, 
And it thinks no more of the while 

That the zephyrs missed it. 

So flows the life of man 

Through the deep and shadow, 

But ever it comes at last 
To the sun-bright meadow. 



The Old Men In Books. 

What a wonder it is that a man can walk 
With the great and the wise of old, 

Who have looked in the face of an infant 
race 
In the mythical age of gold. 

They have talked with the ones that our 
hearts revere, 
They have dined with the olden kings, 
They have drank at the streams of forgotten 
lores 
As they flowed from their primal springs. 

They have spanned the wide flood of the 
years for us, 

They have come from the far-away, 
As they sat at the boards in the days of old, 

They will sit at our boards to-day. 

64 



THE OLD MEN IN BOOKS. 65 

They will tell all the tales that the stars 
have told, 

All the secrets the waves have known, 
All the ways of beasts, and the ways of men, 

Since the heavenly lights have shone. 

Let us walk with the wise that our hearts 
may learn 
Of the truths that the years unfold, 
Till we stand in the strength of the men 
who lived 
In the mythical age of gold. 



Battle of Manila Bay. 

Out of Mirs Bay 
Speeded our vessels 

Stripped to their keels for the fight, 
While overhead 

Floated our banners 

Fair in the tropical light. 

Blue was the sea, 

Blue were the heavens, 

Light were the hearts that we bore, 
Phoebus and Mars 

Lighting our sea-way. 

Full to the Philippine shore. 

There on a night 

Armed we for battle, 

Close by the hold of the foe ; 

66 



BATTLE OF MANILA BAY. 67 

Silent each man 

Stood by his cannon, 
Waiting the word for the blow. 

High in the east 

Glimmered the night-queen, 
Rough in the rags of the mist ; 
Hard on our bows 
Battered the billows 

Hurled from the sea-monarch's fist. 

Softly we slipped 
Into the channel 

Over the terrors that lay 
Under the deep, 

While the foe's thunder 
Impotent startled the bay. 

Morn and the foe 
Found we together ; 

Marshalled for battle was Spain ; 
All of our men 

Leaped to their duty 

And we remembered the Maine. 



68 BATTLE OF MANILA BAY. 

Thunder and flame 
Burst into being; 

Mad were the waves at each peal ; 
Rent was the air 

Pierced by the screeching 
Cyclones of conical steel. 

Ploughed were the famed 
Ships of the Spanish, 

Till they were wrecks on the sea, 
Filled with the slain, 
Burning and sinking, 

Crushed by the wrath of the free. 

Into the deep 

Fluttered their banner. 

Low as the wreck of the Maine ; 
There shall it lie 
Long as the annals 

Tell us of treacherous Spain. 



Cervera. 

Came the order to Cervera, "Put to sea," 
And the signals from the Spanish flag- 
ship fluttered ; 
Decks were cleared and all the heavy guns 
cast free, 
While no word of plaint the noble foe- 
man uttered. 

Sailing to annihilation 

On Cervera came, 
For the glory of his nation 

And the wreath of fame. 

Then our roar 

Shook the shore, 

And each Spanish keel 

In that main 
Felt the strain 

Of our bolts of steel. 
§9 



70 CERVERA. 

Wrapped were all our ships in battle flame 
and smoke ; 
Stunned were all our ears by the incessant 
thunder ; 
Forward, like swift fox-hounds of the sea 
we broke, 
While the hunted Spanish foxes fled in 
wonder. 

But amid the awful rattle 

Of that steely rain, 
Strong Cervera watched the battle 

Mid his mounds of slain, 

Till his crew 
Faint and few, 

Melted as the snow 
Of the hills, 
When the rills 

Of the springtime flow. 

Wrecked and burned were all his proud and 
stately ships. 
Riven by our shot and opened to the 
billow. 



CERVERA. 71 

Every hulk a wine-cup at the ocean's Hps, 
Every broken gun a seaman's gory pillow. 

So, in one all-fateful hour 

That should famous be, 
He beheld the Spanish power 

Smitten from that sea 

Where of old 
Waved the bold 

Lion-head of Spain, 
Which shall roar 
Nevermore 

O'er the ^'Spanish main." 



Sea-Caves. 

Caves of the sea I have seen, 

Ragged, on coasts that are lonely, 

Rank with the sea-dulses green. 
Red with the rock-algae only, 

Piled with old driftwood like bones 
Left for the breezes to whiten, 

Relics from all of the zones. 
Potent not even to frighten; 

Plumed by choke-berry and rose 
Flung from the wilds as a token ; 

Visited only by crows 

Hunting the mussels half-broken. 

However brightens the day, 
All of the light is from under. 

All of the rain is sea-spray, 
All of the voices wave-thunder. 

72 



SEA-CAVES. n 

Yet, by these noisy sea-caves 

Spirits of silence are dwelling, 
God rules the bleakness, his waves 

Speak with his voice in their swelling. 

Like are the caves of our thought, 
Filled with our errors and lonely, 

Far on a coast never sought, 
Where we are travelers only, 

Walking amid the debris, 

Silent, yet rapt in emotion. 
Knowing that God is, and He 

Watches the toil of his ocean. 



The Patriarch Sequoia. 

Where the summer winds are blowing 

From Pacific's sunny sea, 
Stands the patriarch sequoia 

Walled by mountains vast as free, — 
Ancient, calling from past ages 

To the ages that will be. 

When blind Homer swept his lyre 
Till it voiced his matchless song, 

When young David sang of heaven 
To the heaven's starry throng, 

In a valley that was nameless 
Grew this seedling young and strong. 

Slow the cycles waxed and wasted. 

Lordly grew the tree and tall, 
And the very sun that kissed it 

74 



THE PATRIARCH SEQUOIA. 75 

Saw the Greeks at Tyre's wall, 
Saw the hosts of Alexander 
Push all Asia to her fall. 



Mightier it was when Caesar 
Led Old Rome's embattled host 

Roughly o'er the northern nations 
To an island's savage coast, 

Beating into dust the armies 

That were Gaul's and Britain's boast. 

When its summit towered lofty, 

Christ was teaching Galilee, 
Rome had spread her law-leagued power 

Over every land and sea. 
Lands that now are bright with learning, 

Then knew naught but savager\\ 

Realms were born, grew old and perished, 

Till the telling but remained, 
Time, with its relentless seasons. 

Turned to dust the trophies gained, 
But this green tree mid its mountains 

Waned not with the years that waned. 



76 THE PATRIARCH SEQUOIA. 

When shall fail the life within it ? 

Men a thousand years from now 
May enraptured gaze upon it 

Towering still with lofty brow, 
Mindful that our boastful nations 

Withered ere its weakest bough. 

''Viva, viva," calls the zephyr 

From Pacific's sunny sea, 
"Stand forever, grand sequoia, 

Walled by mountains vast as free, 
Living witness of past ages 

To the ages that will be." 



Belshazzar's Feast. 

Belshazzar, the king, a wonderful feast 

Spread for a thousand lords, 
And drank his wine from the Jewish cups, 

And lauded the heathen gods. 

And his nobles laughed and with shout pro- 
fane 

Were praising their monarch's state, 
And nothing they cared for the allied foe 

That hammered in vain at the gate. 

They sang in jest of the baffled Medes, 
And the Persians laughed to scorn. 

For never a foe, they cried, could break 
Through the walls of Babylon. 

For two long years had the northern hordes 
The citv encircled round ; 



78 BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST. 

But though they patiently fought and 
watched, 
Yet never a bregich was found. 

And the city was stored with a mighty 
weight 

Of food for a score of years, 
And the citizen soldiers were ever alert 

To baffle the foe with their spears. 

So they deemed them safe in their mortal 
might 

And worshipped their gods of stone, 
And hardly less did they flatter and praise 

The monarch upon his throne. 

But a horrible dread filled every heart 

When beyond the candles tall, 
A ghostly finger and hand appeared, 

And wrote on the plastered wall. 

Then the maidens cried, and the warriors 
quailed, 

And the princes stood aghast, 
And the haughty king of the Chaldees shook 

Like a reed before the blast. 



BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST. 79 

For the words were words no man could 
read, 

Nor magian understand, 
Though messengers in haste called in 

The wizards of the land, 

Till the word of the king to Daniel came, 
And the youth was summoned in, 

And read, with the fire of prophecy. 
Their doom for the Chaldees' sin. 

The warriors sprang from the banquet hall, 

And a dread was everywhere. 
For the shout and the clang of battle burst 

Like a whirlwind on the air ; 

And like a whirlwind's awful sweep 

Came the hosts of Cyrus on, 
And the spears of the Medes and Persians 
flashed 

Through the streets of Babylon ; 

While the darkness fled from the torches' 
glare. 
And the furious rage of war 



So BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST. 

Swelled to the royal gate and court, 
And rolled to the walls afar ; 

And the tumult grew, and the mighty domes 

Shook with the battle-peals, 
And the myriad spears and great-swords 
rang 

Against the warding shields. 

When the night was done and the morning 
came 
With soft and perfumed breath, 
Through the length and breadth of the city 
lay 
The ghastly forms of death, 

And, reft of his crown and his gorgeous 
robes, 

Belshazzar the monarch there 
Lay 'mid the dead with his face upturned 

With a frown to the morning air. 

For another king sat on the shining throne, 

Darius, the mighty Mede, 
And the crown of the "golden monarchy" 

Had passed from Belshazzar's seed. 



The Mighty Deep. 

Forth upon the main we go, 

SaiHng far, 
Where the ceaseless currents flow, 

And where are 
All the wonders of the ocean 

In the vales by plummet sounded, 
All the tumult and commotion 

Of the seas that man has rounded. 
And we bow our hearts and say, 
"Here is God's great deep," but nay, 

This is not the deep, 

Not the mighty deep. 

Forth into the night we go, 

And our eyes 
Search the starry sands that glow 

In the skies , 

81 



82 THE MIGHTY DEEP. 

And with sunlight for a plummet 

All the wide abysses measure, — 
Lowest void and highest summit 

Yield their worlds like hidden treasure ; 
And with hearts illumed we say, 
"Here at last the deep," but nay, 

This is not the deep, 

Not the mighty deep. 

Then we go not forth to see. 
But our thought 
Reaches Godward, whence are we 

Who were not. 
We would know the Mind of ages, 

Vaster, deeper than creation. 
All the riches of all sages 

To the sky's remotest nation, — 
Treasures of the Deep are they. 
And He holds them all for aye : 

He alone is deep, 

God, the Mighty Deep. 



The Eskimo's Inferno. 

If he has plundered the poor, 
Or has forsaken the weak; 

If he has stolen kayaks, 

Or failed his provision to seek ; 

Then when he dies he will go 
Up to the north of the skies, 

Where a great mountain of sea 
Frozen eternally, lies. 

There he will wander for aye. 
Freezing, unspeakably cold, 

Starving forever, no seal 
Nor fish will he ever behold ; 

Only the sea-lion's skull. 
Naught but unedible bone. 

And, with his hunger and cold. 
Will he incessantly groan. 

83 



84 THE ESKIMO'S INFERNO. 

There all those sorrowful souls 
Play ball with skulls, and we see 

The light of their gambols at night 
Moving, like waves of the sea. 

So let the people beware, 

Shunning this region of woes — 

Never the good will go there, 
Onlv the bad Eskimos. 



The Eskimo's Elysium. 

Happy are they 
Who have done evil to none, 

Passing away, 
They go to a land that is known- 

Into the earth — 
Far from the cold and the snow, 

Deep, very deep 
Is the space whither they go. 

Under the world, 
Which many pillars sustain. 

Is that bright land 
Whence none returneth again. 

There never blow 
Winds that are angry and cold ; 

There liveth youth 
Rejuvenating the old. 

85 



86 THE ESKIMO'S ELYSIUM. 

There in a sea 
Beating but lightly the land, 

Fishes and seals 
Numerous are as the sand. 

So peace and rest, 
Plenty and happiness are 

Given to all 
Whether from near or from far, 

Where in delights 
Dwell, ever free from their woes. 

Never the bad, 
Only the good Eskimos. 



The Plow of the Lord. 

The frost comes down from the Northland, 
'Tis the terrible plow of the Lord ; 

It mellows the soil of the nations ; 
It finds out a path for the sod ; 

That Earth may be decked with her mantle 
When the new Summer marches abroad. 

It plows on the plain and the mountain, 
It shatters the clod of the vale, 

It breaks through the crust of the prairie 
That is hard with the sun and the gale ; 

It runs through the mold of the meadow 
As it lies in its coating of mail. 

It toils at the root of the lichen. 

Nor cares that it plows for the small ; 

87 



88 THE PLOW OF THE LORD. 

It sends its white shares through the forest ; 

Nor is proud that it works for the tall ; 
It waits not the words of a master, 

But freely it labors for all. 

And what are the horses that draw it ? 

They are winds from the boreal zone, 
That are harnessed ere whitens the winter, 

Ere the wilds are with snow overblown ; 
And their passing we hear as they trample 

In the fields that the winter has sown. 

We plow, 'tis the plowing of children ; 

We sow and rejoice for the sod; 
We reap the thick sheaves, for the Mighty 

Has smitten the earth with his rod. 
And far through the land has run deeply 

The terrible plow of the Lord. 



The Farm and the State. 

We are bound to the plowman, 

His fate is our fate, 
If he falter, we falter, 

Be he great, we are great ; 
For the thrift of the farmer 

Is the thrift of the State. 

If he toil and his children 

Inherit the land. 
If in school and in college 

They strive and expand. 
Then great be our glory 

And mighty our hand. 

If he fail, and the alien 

Inherit instead. 
With his wife and his daughters 

Field-working for bread, 

89 



90 THE FARM AND THE STATE. 

Then fast the RepubHc 
Will drift to the dead. 

When the Godliest science 

Has passed to decay, 
Then the corner-stone quivers 

And crumbles away, 
And the temple of Freedom 

Sinks into the clay. 

So we cry to the farmer, 

"Be valiant, be great, 
Your hand holds the future 

And measures our fate ; 
Your farm is a pillar 

Upholding the State." 



The First Christmas. 

No bells were rung, 
No merry shouts 

Announced that Christ was bom, 
Not one of all 
The people knew 

That this was Christmas morn. 

No feasts were spread, 
No gifts were sent 

In memory of one 
By man received — 
The kingly gift 

Of sonship in a Son. 

Yet this was first 
Of holy days, 

The marvel of an age, 

91 



92 THE FIRST CHRISTMAS. 

A day that should 
Remembered be 

By monarch, priest and sage. 

So does God work 
In silent ways, 

And often, if our eyes 
Could pierce the cloud, 
We would behold 

A hidden wonder rise. 

Now bells are rung-. 
Now merry shouts 

Announce that Christ is born. 
Now one and all 
The people know 

When comes the Christmas morn. 

The seed was small, 
The plant was great, 

The day of God expands 
And bears its fruit 
Of love and law 

In earth's remotest lands. 



The Earth Star. 

Brightly shining in the heavens 

Of some other world 
Is the planet we inhabit, 

Gloriously impearled. 

All the things that here are common 

In the solar light, 
Flash their rays to make the splendor 

Of our star at night. 

May-be on the other planets 

Watchers lift their eyes, 
Longing for a future dwelling 

In the starry skies ; 

Lift their eyes and see us rising 

In the purple haze, 
Doubting not that here are endless 

Peace and perfect days ; 

Dreaming not that warrior nations 
Battle, and alarms 

93 



94 THE EARTH-STAR. 

Scatter panics mid the war-camps 
Of a world in arms. 

In the sky of Mars the brightest 

Orb of night are we, 
Star of morning, star of evening, 

Lighting land and sea, 

Flashing through a thousand forests 

Where the breezes blow, 
Quivering on a thousand wave-crests 

Where the waters flow, 

Leading all the train celestial, 

Cheering by its grace 
All the harvest eves and festals 

Of the Martian race. 

Mercury, the sun's attendant, 

Jupiter the great, 
Venus, brightest to our vision, 

On our rising wait. 

When the morning stars together 

Sang their day of birth, 
Brightly, 'mong its glorious fellows, 

Shone the astral earth. 



A Sunset Scene. 

Tranquil waters 
Far outspreading, 
Bounded only 

By the sky ! 
Not a zephyr 
Breaks the stillness, 
While the twilight 

Draweth nigh. 

On the distant 
Ocean mirror, 
Like white fingers 

Of the sea, 
Idle vessels 
Wait the coming 
Of the land breeze 

Patiently. 

95 



96 A SUNSET SCENE. 

Here a long buoy 
Swims the waters, 
Warning seamen 

To beware 
Of the hidden 
Danger lurking 
Where the prospect 

Seems most fair. 

Yonder, flying, 
Are the sea-gulls. 
Closely fanning 

With their wings 
The gray ocean, 
In whose bosom 
Swim in legions 

Living things. 

In the heavens 
Hang the hazy 
Moveless garments 

Of a cloud ; 
Yellow tinted, 
Crowned with fire, 
And with many 

Hues endowed. 



A SUNSET SCENE. 97 

Now the red sun, 
Lower sinking, 
Rests its great disc 

On the brim 
Of the far off 
Crimson water, 
Whence an image 

Rises dim; 

Till descending. 
The bright servant 
Of Jehovah, 

With his light, 
Passes from us. 
And another 
From the east comes — 

Lo, the night! 



The Universal Tragedy. 

From the hand of the Master 
The world rolled out into space, 

And He said, *'It shall be 
The burial ground of a race : 

Fierce warriors 

Alone shall rise up on its face." 

The words were said truly ; 

The world is a battlefield all; 
All life is in arms 

And responds to the terrible call ; 
Each atom 

Like a hero, must conquer or fall. 

From man to the microbe 

We live by a war upon life ; 
The weak must go down, 

98 



THE UNIVERSAL TRAGEDY. 

And the aged must yield in the strife ;- 
A moment 

Each one may be lord of the knife. 

The very diseases 

Are legions of life to be fed, 
They only can live 

If others go down to the dead ; 
Their armies 

Like ours, are fighting for bread. 

At dawn of the ages 

The pitiless battle began ; 
It will last while the world 

Gives birth to a mote or a man, 
Till the sun-star 

Has shrunk to its ultimate span. 

Then Earth, like Neptune, 

Will drift into silence for aye ; 

The seas will be ice, 

And the land will be frozen alway ; 

The storm-winds 

Will blow not by night nor by day. 

LcfC.^ 



99 



100 THE UNIVERSAL TRAGEDY. 

And the victor and vanquished, 

Together forever as one, 
Will grieve not nor boast 

At the valorous deeds that were done 
By the living 

In the days of the reign of the sun. 



The Lighthouse. 

'Neath a canopy of night, 

Girt by foamy seas, 
Stands the Hghthouse, spectral, white. 

Firm to every breeze. 

Be the weather foul or fair, 

Far its beacons show, 
To the world-rim billows where 

Freighted sea-ships go. 

And the pilots heed and sail 

By its far-off gleam, 
As it glitters, small and pale. 

Like a star abeam. 

So the Union towers white, 

So its beacons shine. 
So its stars illume the night 

With a gleam benign. 

And the stately nations all 

Sailing fast and far. 
See beyond the sea-mists tall 

Freedom's guiding star. 

101 



«• 



Art Is Long. 

Art is long ; 

So the poet sings his song 

With an aching heart ; 
For he knows 
Myriad forms where beauty glows, 

That, unseen, depart. 

Time has wings, 

So the raptured singer sings 

Of his little day; 
For his tongue 
Leaves a million songs unsung 

That are on his way. 

Art is long. 

And the painter weeps the throng 
Of unpainted things ; 

102 



ART IS LONG. 103 

When shall he 

Paint the earth and sky and sea 
That each season brings? 

All too far 

Lies the heaven's farthest star 

For our span of night ; 
All too deep 
Are the wonder truths that sleep, 

For uncertain sight. 

Art is long, 

So will we rejoice, my song, 

At the faultless plan ; 
For we know 
To the farthest end must go 

God's great scholar — Man. 



A Dream of Science. 

Lift the veil from the ages, 
Let the dreams of the sages 
Be outspread 
On the records 
Of Hght ; 
Let our hearts feast in knowing 
The fair things that are going 
To be done 

For our children's 
Delight. 

As the aeons grow longer 
Shall our science grow stronger, 
Until man 

Becomes master 
Of all ; 
In the skies that surround him 
There shall nothing confound him, 
And the stars 

Shall come nearer 
At call. 

104 



A DREAM OF SCIENCE. 105 

He shall multiply millions 
Of diameters, billions 
In their size 

Shall his objects 
Expand, 
By his multiple glasses, 
Till our thoughts he surpasses 
With the thing 
He has fashioned 
By hand. 

All the fauna and flora 
Of the orbs of aurora, 
All the life 
Upon Venus 
And Mars, 
Will be classified, sifted, 
By the learned and gifted 
In the lore 

Of the reading 
Of stars. 

We will find us new causes 
For debates and applauses ; 
For each bug 



io6 A DREAM OF SCIENCE. 

And each beetle 
And bee 
Of the new lands arising 
Will demand analyzing 
In the code 
Of the science 
To be. 

We will thrill with emotions 
When we look on the oceans 
That are spread 
On the planets 
At night, 
Or behold through the mazes 
Of the driving sea-hazes 
The red fleets 
Of the Martians 
In fight. 

We will tell in our ditties 
Of the heavenly cities 
On the shores 
Of the rivers 
And seas, 
Where the folks are much queerer 



A DREAM OF SCIENCE. 107 

Than the folks that are nearer, 
And our dreams 
Will be peopled 
With these. 

We will quiet our yearning 
With the curious learning 
Of the men 

That are thronging 
The sky, 
Though we know not a token, 
Nor a word that is spoken 
By the wise 

In their councils 
On high. 

We will roam in their goodlands 
With our eyes, and their woodlands 
Shall their shades 
And their blossoms 
Lay bare, 
Till we find El Dorado 
In the purple-mist shadow 
Of the stars 

And the kingdoms 
Of air. 



The Divine in Man. 

The beast beyond his comfort has no long- 
ing, 
He takes of Nature's joys nor questions 
why; 
He sports the milHon forms to her belong- 
ing,— 
His dream is all to live and not to die. 

The kindly King has veiled his mind from 
seeing 
The black-robed guard of man — the angel 
Death, 
So lies he down contented with his being, 
Nor mourns because his life-span is a 
breath. 

But God has destined man to higher sta- 
tions 

108 



THE DIVINE IN MAN. 109 

Than eye has seen or thinking mind con- 
ceived ; 
And so has troubled him with aspirations 
That drive him faithward as he has be- 
heved. 

The night of death looms vast and sure be- 
fore him, 
A void of blackness without rift or sign, 
But this he knows because the Presence 
o'er him 
Has planted in him life that is divine ; 

And restless, restless, restless is his spirit, — 
It searches mind and matter, earth and 
air, 

It searches for some good it may inherit. 
It searches out the God of everywhere ; 

It is a magnet, living, moving, turning 

To find its great Affinity afar, 
And only will it satisfy its yearning 

When it has touched its own celestial 
star. 



The Golden Rivers. 

Broadly flow the streams and deep, 

All the sands are golden. 
Where, in mines exhaustless, sleep 

Treasures priceless, olden — 
Through the land of Truth sublimely, 

Under cloud and sun, 
Worthy of the fair immortals, 

Knowledge rivers run.- 

Savants sift these sands that shine 

With a light supernal; 
For the gold is all divine 

Of the Mind eternal ; 
He has wondrous secrets hidden 

In the land of Truth — 
Such they be that their unveiler 

Finds immortal youth. 

110 



THE GOLDEN RIVERS. in 

Only here are nations strong, 

Only here unshaken, 
Only here through ages long 

Stand their walls untaken, 
Builded by the mystic rivers. 

Massively and high, 
Reared in knowledge, truth and wisdom, 

'Neath a changeless sky. 

Better are these streams that flow 

Than the fairest waters 
That the realms of fancy know ; 

Fairer than the daughters 
Of the Nile green-spread and fertile 

Under Egypt's sun : 
For these golden streams are daughters 

Of a mightier One. 



The Sea-Beach. 

Speak, O silent witnesses 
Of primeval mysteries, 
Rocks, that ocean rounded tell 
Of unmeasured interval. 

Here upon this seamless sand 
Strewn with sea-wrought stones I stand, 
Striving if I may but shake 
Off th' unreal and awake ; 

For we live we know not why, 
In unreal mystery, 
And at times we almost seem 
Just awaking from a dream. 

Look, these stones, which seem to say, 
*'We were born but yesterday," 

112 



THE SEA-BEACH. 113 

Have for ages heard the roar 
Of the seas upon this shore. 

Strange that anything should be 
Half as old as this gray sea 
Of which none may comprehend 
The beginning or the end ! 

Now the sunlight falling fair 
On the beach, the laggard air, 
Hardly moving stops to lave 
Its dry pinions in the wave ; 

And the tide, which comes as slow 
As the summer zephyrs blow, 
Like sweet music filleth me 
With a tongueless ecstasy. 

Then at eve, when one degree 
Hangs the moon above the sea, 
When above the darkened trees 
Shine the twinkling Pleiades, 

Softly, thinly rolls a song 
From the seas that glide along 



114 THE SEA-BEACH. 

O'er the sands, the shells, the old 
Stones with histories untold ; 

And we listen, though we know 
It is but the water's flow, 
But a thousand sounds that run 
Indistinguished into one. 



Lovely Camden. 

Lovely Camden ! towering high, 

In ruae lines, 
Are thy mountains ; flitting by 

Oaks and pines. 
Is a devious winding brook, — 
In thy shade, Megunticook. 

Lovely Camden ! many a lake 

Sparkling lies. 
Rimmed with fern, and brier, and brake. 

Where the skies. 
As in mighty mirrors, look, — 
Near ^o thee, Megunticook. 

Lovely Camden ! Ocean comes, 

And to thee 
Brings his beaches, where he thrums 

With his sea ; 

U5 



ii6 LOVELY CAMDEN. 

But at thy all-conquering look, 
He is curbed, Megunticook. 

So with mountains, lakes, and seas. 

Beautified, 
With the songs of surf and breeze, 

Floating wide, 
Loved for nature's trinity, 
Camden nestles by the sea. 



En Voyage. 

We embarked in a beautiful ship, 

In our voyage to the Ultimate Isle, 
And we steered by the heart and the lip 
In the days when the sun was a smile ; 
For she, the sweet charmer, was there, 
With the flowers of May in her hair, 
She was love, and to me she was fair 
As pur hope in the Ultimate Isle. 

We sailed all alone, all alone, 

And the world — it was she, it was I, 

For we sailed by the tropical zone, 
And we shunned the antropical sky ; 

For what was there common forsooth 

To the ice-fields and fervescent youth ; 

And love was the reason in truth 

That we shunned the antropical sky. 

117 



ii8 EN VOYAGE. 

By the mist of the world overblown, 

I have made me a league with the air, 
That however it blow for its own, 

It will blow only fair for my fair ; 
And the lode-needle never more dips 
When it pilots the beautiful ships 
To the isle where the honey-dew drips,- 
The Ultimate Isle of the fair. 



^ »»- 



Eternal Change. 

O Time, O Space, show me some shore 
Where changeless things forever are, 

Where never blow the winds, nor roar 
The restless waves gale-blown from far; 

There might the nation, camped for aye, 

A loved monotony retain. 
With all the forms of yesterday 

Supreme within its frozen brain. 



ETERNAL CHANGE. iig 

But nowhere in the moving Hnes 

Of world-girt suns that shore is found ; 

Eternal change has set its signs 
On all within the stellar bound. 

So camps the nation with the night, 
So wakes the nation with the sun 

And draws anew its line of fight 
On fielas untried, in lands unwon. 

We face new problems with new day, 
Our duty path grows ocean-wide ; 

We cannot turn aside, nor stay 

The winds that fan the nation's pride. 

We rush to deeds unplanned, unthought, 
We yield to all-pervading Change, 

For every age has blindly wrought 

The forms that to the Past were strange. 



The Stars. 

Look, in the midst of the night, 

Blazing on high, 
Numberless jewels of light 

Spangle the sky, 
Making the firmament bright, 

Where splendors lie. 

Part of our world do they seem. 

Fires aglow. 
Kindled, forever to gleam 

On all below. 
Known by the world as in dream 

Only we know. 

What they are not they appear, 

Not what they are. 
Each an unthinkable sphere 

RolHng afar, 

120 



THE STARS. 121 

Dragging the worlds that are near 
After its car. 

Through the immeasurable space 

Ever they roll, 
Leaving behind them no trace, 

Seeking no goal ; 
Endless the line of their race 

As of the soul. 



Mental Picture Galleries. 

In the midst of the house of the soul is a 

room 
Where the walls are of light and the air a 

perfume, 
Where are painted the scenes that our 

memories hold 
As the chiefest the world to our sight has 

unrolled. 

When we journey afar or anear, to our 
eyes 
There appear the new glories of nature 
and art, 



122 MENTAL PICTURE GALLERIES. 

And we bear them away, be we foolish or 
wise, 
To the hmitless room in the house of the 
heart. 

It is not when the steps of the journey are 
done 
That the journey itself is accomplished 

for aye, 
For the soul travels often the memoried 
way 
That our feet in the past have so happily 
run. 

In my gallery here 

There are scenes that are dear, 

There are some that are beautiful, some 
that are grand, 
There are paintings of trees 
And of flowery leas 

And of furious billows engulfing the 
land 

Here's a port by the sea, 
With its harbor and ships. 



MENTAL PICTURE GALLERIES. 123 

With the waters beyond 

Where the western sun dips, 
And with beaches that hold 

The salt seas to their lips ; 

There are children at play, 

There's a house that was ''home", 

Where the windows were wet 
With the breath of the foam, 

When the thundering gale 
From the ocean had come. 

Here's a picture of plains 

In the West, where the rains 

Seldom fall, where the loneliness weighs 
on the soul, 
And we see not a thing 
But the glittering wing 

Of a bird in its flight to some far-away 
goal. 

Here's a coast where the hurricane bellows 
and roars. 
Where the rain sweeps along like a tor- 
rent in air, 



124 MENTAL PICTURE GALLERIES. 

'T is an isle in the edge of an ocean, and 
there 
Stands a man all alone by the quivering 
shores. 

Here's a picture of peace ; 't is a river that 
flows 
At the feet of the Catskills, and seen on 
its breast 
Are the varying tints of the lily and rose 
And the shades that are caught from 
each towering crest. 

Thus we paint in our hearts all the beauties 

of earth, 
Thus we take to ourselves all the joys that 

have birth, 
And we make them immortal, a part of the 

room 
Where the walls are of light and the air a 

perfume. 



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